When Last Night Didn't End

4.4

Hearing Yaora speak of someone with this much respect dripping out of his tone was kind of a unique experience.

"Where is she now?" I ventured.

"Dead," came the flat reply. Just one word, but it carried such a significant weight and finality.

"I'm sorry," I said.

Yaora's scales clinked when he rolled his shoulders. I never mentioned how much his upper body resembled a crocodile just with longer arms, but now, we're here. "Not your fault," the dragonkin said, wiping his snout with the fleshy side of his hands. "She followed her convictions until the very end, and without her, we wouldn't be where we are now. We won't be Dragnasand's best adventurers. We'd just be nutters on the street, looking for the next tavern to waste away until dawn."

"Was it a big assignment?" I asked. Why was I even curious about this? Shouldn't I leave this in the past and focus on our duty at hand?

Yaora's slitted eyes never really stayed in one place for more than a few seconds, so I guessed he was still doing the job. "At the time, yes," he said. "But this one's bigger, even by our standards."

I stepped forward when Yaora abruptly stopped, almost causing me to bump into the spiked scales lining his back. Thank God, I was able to catch myself. The dragonkin turned to me. "Cavya might look like he has the world at his paws, but let me tell you, as someone who has been with him since the beginning," he said. "He doesn't, Chrysvern. He's only a langkoor with a rapier, and being with Lunare, and now, you, seems to make him forget that."

"Is that why you're trying to hold me back a number of times?" I asked. "Why you hold Cavya and everyone back?"

Yaora didn't bother looking at me, instead surging forward by tearing a wall of hanging vines and overgrown shrubs with his bare hands. "I don't want another Lunare," he said. "The shadow it cast upon us was so great we wouldn't be rid of it until the next life. Mirani, most of all, even if she doesn't show it."

Was Lunare the person Mirani had been referring to when she talked about grieving and losing people?

"Be careful, Kora," he ducked under a tangle of thick branches he wouldn't be able to slap into oblivion without hurting his palms. "As much as you're a pain in the ass, none of us want to lose you like we lost her."

"But wasn't that the life of an adventurer?" I wondered aloud. As long as they're doing this job, shouldn't they be used to it by now? They talked of death like it's an everyday occurrence. Shouldn't grieving be an automatic emotion for them? Wouldn't it be that way for me, a little bit down the road as well?

Yaora scoffed. "I'll pretend you didn't just assume we're rigid creatures with that statement," he said. "We know the dangers of this job even before we chose this path, but losing people...it doesn't get any easier. Rather, it becomes harder with age. I don't know why."

Maybe because with age came the depth to be able to love someone more than one's self? As we get older, the more our heart opens, the more we realize the brevity of the life we've been given. And with that, we tried to enjoy it with as many people as we could, to make sure our lives meant something to them once we did depart.

There's fear in everyone's heart, and in most of us, there lived a fear of our life amounting to nothing after living it. We wouldn't get any redos, which made us want to do our best on our first try. And most of the time, that fear was the one driving us forward, to wake up each day and attempt to make a difference.

"I appreciate you telling me that, by the way," I said. When I got no reply, I tore my eyes away from a bush with bright blue blades swirling upwards like a spout of water and huge, pink buds shaped like artichokes drooping in bunches. There was no one with me. "Yaora?" I called.